Each month we select a Library of the Month to honor libraries who have been using our library technologies in interesting and innovative ways, from creating well-curated reading lists with Talis Aspire to encouraging uptake of the Lean Library browser extension amongst their students. We’re also appreciating the intensive work of librarians in curating these technologies and improving learning outcomes for their students.
The winning library will be awarded a prize to share amongst their team or a donation to a charity of their choice as a way for us to say thank you.
Zurich University of the Arts is one of the largest universities of the arts in Europe. The study and research programme covers the fields of art education, cultural critique, design, film, fine arts, music, dance, theatre and transdisciplinary studies. The Media and Information Centre MIZ combines the university library and its archives and holds around 300’000 media, documents and objects as well as an extensive collection of electronic resources.
We’ve awarded them our Library of the Month Award for March, as Zurich University of the Arts have been great advocates of Lean Library for a number of years. They have fantastic usage stats for Lean Library, including the Alternatives and Open Access features, ensuring their students have easy access to library resources.
We asked Simone Welti, Library Information Specialist at Zurich University of the Arts to tell us more about the university library and what winning Library of the Month meant to them:
“We have been subscribers to Lean Library since 2020 and development partners for Lean Library Futures since 2021. With Lean Library Futures we hope to increase awareness among our university members of the many great resources they have access to thanks to the library. In addition, by including services such as Lean Library Futures, we are also reassuring members that we are looking at new tools and keeping up to date with the latest technology.
We would like to thank Technology of Sage for choosing us as Library of the Month. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and seeing many new and exciting features in Lean Library Futures.”
Discover our previous winners below:
Could your library be next?
Join us next month to see who’s won.
AI in Libraries: March Edition March 11, 2025At Technology from Sage we believe that the right technology can remove barriers to knowledge. We recently launched an AI in Libraries feature to round-up the latest AI developments for academic librarians.
Read on for March’s edition, collated by Rajeh Shaikh, Product Manager at Sage.
Oxford University has launched an exciting new five-year collaboration with OpenAI to enhance research and education. This partnership will provide students and faculty with access to different AI tools, including OpenAI’s advanced models, along with research grants and enterprise-level security. One of the initiatives is to digitize Oxford’s historical collections, including thousands of dissertations from the Bodleian Library, and exploring AI’s impact on education and global challenges such as health and climate change. This collaboration is also part of the NextGenAI consortium, where OpenAI is investing $50 million to support innovation in education and research.
Read more about the collaboration.
University libraries in Zimbabwe are facing growing ethical challenges as they are starting to integrate AI into higher education. A recent study highlights the concerns surrounding privacy, intellectual property, and job security, as AI transforms teaching and learning environments. Interviews with librarians and academics reveal that many institutions are still in the early stages of AI adoption and lack clear policies to address these issues. Among the main concerns are transparency, data security, and the potential for plagiarism detection issue.
Yale University Libraries are focusing on AI as a key priority for the next five years, aiming to leverage its potential to enhance access to the university’s extensive collections. Barbara Rockenbach, the reappointed University Librarian, emphasize the importance of digitization and AI in making Yale’s archives more accessible. With ongoing digitization efforts and AI tools already supporting collection management, the library plans to expand AI’s role in guiding students and faculty through its resources. Rockenbach views AI as a new form of literacy, enabling deeper engagement with digital content.
